Could your prospective employee be a sex offender?

On behalf of Watkins & Letofsky, LLP posted in Sexual Harassment on Wednesday, December 23, 2015.

The social stigma of sex crimes is like no other in our society. Essentially, we think of people charged with these crimes (and convicted of them) as social pariahs; people who we do not want to live around, have our children around, and do not expect them to rejoin our society as workers in a number of industries.

Even more important, we view sex crime convicts as predators who are so dangerous that we do not want them around...ever. In fact, those accused of sex crimes may even have to prove themselves innocent instead of the state proving them guilty.

With that type of visceral reaction towards people accused of sex crimes, it is no wonder that a large majority of them are unlikely to tell their employers. Indeed, this may be in violation of an employer's policy for employees (as well as prospective employees) to promptly disclose these types of charges and/or convictions, but employers should expect that because of the strong need for an employee to make a living (and get a paycheck), a person may not feel comfortable disclosing facts about a troubled past.

Because of this employers must be vigilant about performing background checks. Perhaps an investigation can be performed by an experienced employment law attorney or investigative firm. Either way, a perspective employee should be vetted against state and federal sex offender databases so that an employer knows what they are getting with a potential employee.

The preceding is not legal advice. For questions about your specific situation, an experienced employment law attorney can help.

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